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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Protester Torches Himself ( + a flame thrower video )

Are you thinking about a trip to the labor board? Here's something to keep your plight in perspective. A group of about 20 workers were outside of the Chonbuk KCTU headquarters, protesting that they had not received payment for the Route 88 expansion project. One men, Mr. Seo (47), a cement truck driver, was owed 800 million won in wages and material expenses. Amongst the other protesters, he poured a bottle of thinner over himself. Before anyone grasped what he was doing, he lit himself. Fellow protesters and police smothered the flames and police rushed him to hospital. He was later transferred to a burn unit in Seoul, where he died. Courtesy, Jeonbuk Ilbo.

That is one way of getting everyone's attention...

Protesters in South Korea are pretty intense like this. I have seen many "peaceful" protests in my time here, but they are still creepy to watch because Koreans are so uniform and militant about demanding stuff. I found a couple interesting videos on youtube for you to watch if you are unfamiliar with how Koreans protest.

This pretty much is the craziest thing I have ever seen a group of protesters do. In 2000, veterans were protesting and demanding certain retirement benefits. They made their own flame thrower and turned it on the police forces.

Here is a video from 2006 of a labor protest in Pohang:

Here is an apparently impromptu protest outside an American military base

Define Waygook (외국)

A waygookin (외국인) is any person not of Korean ancestry. Waygook (외국) simply means "foreign". Koreans call people of non Korean ancestry "waygookin". Foreigners shorten the term to "waygook". This blog is from the perspective of a Western native-English speaking waygook.